Senate could vote on revised open-records law

Monday

HARRISBURG — The state Senate could vote as early as today on a bill giving the public greater access to records generated by all levels of government in Pennsylvania.

The state Senate Rules Committee voted 14-1 Monday night to approve an overhaul of the state’s 50-year-old open-records law.

Sen. Vincent Fumo, a Philadelphia Democrat, was the lone dissenter.

House and Senate leaders have been negotiating for more than a month to settle differences between open-records proposals from each chamber.

Some of the major changes in the latest version of the bill would:

• Keep dates of births on court documents and other records public.

•Allow courts to decide whether 911 recordings or transcripts should be public.

•Require lawmakers to make public any correspondence with a registered lobbyist.

•Create an Office of Open Records within the state Department of Community and Economic Development, with a director appointed by the governor to a six-year term.

•Make the effective date Dec. 31, 2008.

Sen. Richard Kasunic, D-Fayette County, said it was embarrassing for Pennsylvania to have one of the weakest laws in the nation regarding public access to government documents.

“What we are doing is moving toward the point of opening up records for all Pennsylvanians,” said Kasunic, who serves on the Rules Committee. “If everything is up and up as it should be, why shouldn’t it be open? Why should we hide anything?”

Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fayette County, has been working for nearly a year on an open-records overhaul.

He said that he preferred language in the House version of the bill calling for the Office of Open Records to be supervised by the state Ethics Commission instead of the Department of Community and Economic Development.

But Mahoney said he could live with the proposal the Senate plans to vote on this week, adding that the Senate version would increase the penalty for intentionally violating the law to $1,500.

Deborah L. Musselman, a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said she was pleased that the Senate proposal would keep dates of birth on government documents public.

“We hope the House will concur on that change,” she said.

Kori Walter can be reached online at kwalter@phillyburbs.com.

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